HPMoR: The Missing (but Necessary) Chapters
by qbsmd
Summary: An extension of the universe of "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality". Includes scenes that should have been but weren't. They contribute nothing to the plot or explaining the universe, but answer important questions that may otherwise never be answered.
1. Playing with Fire

Chapter 21 3/4: Playing with Fire

It was late September and the students had largely acclimated to the strange school. There was no quidditch game for this weekend and no extra-curricular activities had started up yet. It was Saturday, so there was, of course, no danger of anyone attempting to do homework. They were, in a word, bored.

"Even my first memory is my mother yelling", Ron continued. "Small objects around the house would always disappear, like one of a pair of shoes or socks, or some silverware. They'd eventually show up somewhere weird like the back of a random closet or on the roof. This started before Fred and George pranked everyone all the time, so my parents had assumed it was a ghost. Eventually, my parents figured out it was the twins' accidental magic. After that, everyone would yell at them every time they couldn't find something."

"So why don't you tell them about the first time you used accidental magic?" Fred asked from behind Ron, making him jump in surprise.

"It's an amusing, though not unexpected, story for anyone who knows you" said George.

"It's not that amusing" Ron protested.

"As I recall, he was about nine..."

"More like eight."

"...when we were eating dinner, like any other evening."

"And then mum noticed he hadn't finished any of his meat or vegetables..."

"Even though he'd been eating..."

"Rather quickly..."

"...the entire time we'd been sitting down."

"It was quickly discovered that his chicken was spontaneously leaking chocolate sauce."

"And he'd been spooning it into his mouth as fast as it appeared."

"Apparently producing food is really rare for accidental magic..."

"Unless someone is malnourished or starving."

"...otherwise most kids would always have sweets."

"We learned this after a medical person told mum to make sure he was eating enough..."

"After she told the story at our next checkup."

"It's the only time I've ever seen her embarrassed."

"What about you Neville?" Ron quickly tried to change the subject.

"Uh, my story's not that interesting."

"Mine is," Dean jumped in excitedly. "We were at the zoo and my annoying cousin was being annoying. Then while he was leaning against the glass watching a snake, the glass became intangible, so he fell through it, and then it restored itself with him trapped inside. The snake had wrapped around him a few times before the zoo people got him out. And then the ministry had to obliviate soooo many people. Like a couple dozen people were watching, and then they called in like half the employees when he was in the cage. And then they all wandered off and told other people before the aurors got there about ten minutes later. But it was awesome and my cousin wasn't as annoying after that."

"Harry, Hermione, hey!" called Fred.

"We wanted to ask you something...", George added.

"We were talking about everyone's first accidental use of magic. What were yours?"

Harry slowed down and answered "I've never used accidental magic."

Hermione quickly added "neither have I."

"You're both lying" George accused.

"Guess how we know" Fred challenged.

Harry stopped and made eye contact with both of them while responding. "If muggleborns didn't use accidental magic then no one would ever know about them, and I wasn't lying."

"Well, half of that is true..." George began.

"But we'll come back to that in a moment. Hermione, spill." Fred interrupted.

"And we have auror connections, so if you don't tell us, we'll find out anyway. And then so will everyone." George added with an evil smile.

"Ugh, fine. The first day of second grade, someone started making fun of me, then suddenly stopped talking. They had to take her to a hospital after they realized her lips were super-glued together."

"So you literally shut her up; that's actually pretty cool", Harry said. "And super-glue is the perfect weapon for bullies: it's non-lethal but can still be a serious deterrent."

Ron frowned at Harry and opened his mouth but Ernie spoke first, "Why would muggles do that; it's not like they know about blood purity- Ow! Don't kick me under the table, you... freckled chocolate sucker."

"You were being a bloody- wait, what did you call me?"

"It's a Hufflepuff insult" Fred replied.

"They pretty much all sound like that" George added.

"And now it's your turn, Harry."

"You want me to make something up? You probably wouldn't believe it; my life's typically weirder than any story I could tell."

"Alright, Harry. If you're sticking with that story, we'll just tell everyone what we know," Fred shrugged

"You can jump in whenever you're inspired," George encouraged.

"No, go ahead with your story. I'm sure it will be entertaining, though fictional."

"You were going to a muggle school, like Hermione."

"Until you almost burned it down."

"The muggles sent five big, loud, red things that spit water and carry fire-stopping people."

"Which is apparently a big deal. Normally one is supposed to be enough."

"And then the aurors had to modify their memories so the fire didn't look magical."

Harry sighed. "Surprisingly, about half of that is true," he began. "I went to a muggle school, there was a fire, and they did send five fire engines before getting it under control. And everyone blamed me, even though it was, at most, 10% my fault. I was a lot younger then and nowhere near as knowledgeable or responsible as I am now."

He paused briefly as everyone around the table smirked or snorted. "It all started when the teacher announced that we were having a 'science fair', which basically involves everyone doing a project and explaining it to random people. The normal intention is for students to pick a topic they want to understand better and answer some related question using the scientific method. Unfortunately, we were considered too young for that, so we were assigned pre-determined projects. Not that I knew all of this at the time."

He looked around and saw mostly confusion. "The projects were things like connecting potatoes together with bits of metal to make electricity or doing pointless things with magnets or other things that sounded vaguely sciency. Then the teacher mentioned something about volcanoes and I had to interrupt, because the only thing I had known about volcanoes was that they erupted molten rock and destroyed everything around them. This sounded quite dangerous to me, so I pointed that out and asked where this science fair would take place. Her response was that they would put down a tarp and everything would be okay. I noticed I was confused, but didn't press the issue. Unfortunately, she decided that I would be assigned the build-a-model-volcano project.

"So I did what anyone rational would do: I read about volcanoes. I learned a lot about the inside of the earth and what causes volcanoes. But I was basically left where started: I needed to build something that looked like a mountain and leaked red-hot liquid rock. So I needed some rock to melt (I figured any gravel would be good enough), a powerful enough heat source, and something capable of containing the heat source and directing the liquid rock.

"I ended up deciding to use an electric igniter to light a flare which then started combustion in some thermite. I decided to build the mountain out of sand, with a thin layer of quick-dry cement to hold it together. The base of the mountain curved up into a bowl to catch the molten rock. I figured the sand inside would slowly melt, but contain the thermite until it burnt out. And I put a steel pipe from the top of the mountain to the center where the gravel and thermite were. I also poured some water into the sand, figuring it would evaporate to provide enough pressure to move the molten rock out of the volcano and prevent the sand from melting for a while.

"On the day of the science fair, I asked the teacher, again, if this was really safe, and she said something affirmative but dismissive. That was the last time I trusted an adult to be responsible for anything important: I triggered the igniter from what I considered a safe distance. I'd never heard of a steam explosion before, but of course that didn't stop one from happening. The steel pipe embedded itself in the ceiling, and the thermite scattered and fell and set everything it touched on fire.

"Amazingly, everyone got out safely, and a fire engine arrived a few minutes later. They put out much of the fire, but unfortunately there were a few metal fires so when they sprayed then with water, everything got much worse. So they had to call for backup. Eventually they got it under control. I was later informed that my project was actually intended to involve reacting a weak acid with a weak base, which would have been harmless. I was apparently expected to know that somehow despite the complete lack of relevance to volcanoes.

"Afterwards the school sent out three pages of items that were now banned from the school. In the name of safety, of course. And again, everyone blamed me, even though I'd never brought or planned to bring a single item from their list. I mean, water guns and water balloons? Either they were already looking for an excuse, or the people working at muggle schools are the only people less sane than those working at magical schools. Or both.

"But the fire wasn't magical. It was absolutely 100% a natural chemical reaction," Harry concluded insistently.

"The aurors responded to an underage magic incident. They reported that the fire didn't look natural," George said.

"It looked like it was intended to do as much damage as possible, but left clear paths for everyone to escape," Fred added.

"They concluded that you clearly wanted that building gone, but didn't want anyone to get hurt."

"If you'd tried to hurt people, they'd probably have brought you back to be adopted into a magical family. Muggles wouldn't be able to deal with that safely."

"But they probably warned your parents to keep you away from that building if you ever got angry there."

"That... explains a lot, actually," Harry said thoughtfully.

"That it was a magical fire?"

"No, some stuff about how my parents acted after that."

"So you were the only wizard there, there was underage magic, and there was a big magic-looking fire. What do you expect us to believe?" Ron demanded suspiciously. Harry just glared at him.

"What if all of that is true?" Neville asked. "If the fire did start naturally but Harry's accidental magic controlled its spread. You might have saved everyone."

Ron scoffed loudly but Harry cut him off, "that's consistent with everything I know and what Fred and George said. But it's also something I'd really like to be true, so I'm biased toward believing it. I'll have to think about it later in more detail."

"Hermione, I hope you've seen how dangerous that fire-starter is and aren't planning on hanging around him so often now", Ron announced gravely.

"Ron, the fire was an accident and he probably saved everyone from it." Hermione calmly lectured.

"Yeah, according to HIM."

"Whatever. I'm going to the library." Hermione stated, thinking about how convenient it was that Ron wouldn't follow her to the place she'd intended to go before being pulled into this conversation.

"Yeah, me too" Harry called, getting up and following.

"What is WRONG with them?" Ernie asked, disgusted.

"Isn't it obvious?" Ron spat, "He's evil and he's turning her evil."

"I think she's always liked libraries, Ronnie" Fred started.

"And I think you like her. You're jealous aren't you?" George teased.

"Gah, I'm going... to the library" Ron announced, getting up. "Or somewhere more believable", he amended to the others, who were laughing hysterically.

[disclaimer: I have neither attempted nor done calculations on the science project described. Only an idiot would try it without doing careful analysis, having relevant prior experience, and having adequate safety precautions in place. That said, if anyone is inspired, please video and leave a hint to the Youtube link in the reviews (i.e. video oHg5SJYRHA0 is the first rickroll result for Youtube).]


	2. Falling or Flying

Chapter 25 act 3 3/4: Falling or Flying

Monday morning, Harry walked toward the Great Hall thinking about experiments he needed to perform. Conservation of energy is such an important law in physics; it has to hold for magic too. If he could calculate the energy mysteriously produced by different spells, maybe it correlates with the magical effort expended by those spells. Maybe he could quantify magical energy; measure how much he and others held. From there he could calculate the magical power a wizard absorbed from the environment. If it were a constant in a given location, it could be used to measure the local ambient magical field strength-

But this set of experiments had a flaw much like his first set: a beautiful plan of research based on a premise he had not yet tested, much less verified. He didn't intend to make that mistake twice.

"...looking forward to Hogsmeade. I need a break from..."

Most students talk about such trivial, boring things. It's a good thing he met Hermione when he did, despite how annoying she could be.

Hermione- Maybe Hermione was a poor choice of test subject for his initial magical experiments, due to her strong belief in the correctness of the information in books. It shouldn't have mattered because she hadn't known the spells beforehand, but that was another assumption. Maybe the results would be different for someone who believed intent was the only important part of casting magic. Perhaps he should ask her to conduct a similar set of experiments around a different set of spells with himself as the test subject. Or maybe Draco would be interested...

"...finished your transfiguration homework yet? I don't get what Prof..."

Transfiguration. That's such a fascinating area of magic. He should really design a set of experiments to test its true abilities and limitations. Clearly, people could transfigure things without knowing every detail of what they were making. Could he transfigure something no one had made before (first priority: nanofactory)? More disturbingly, where was the intelligence that knew the details the wizard did not? What 'remembered' the original form and un-transfigured objects?

"...know you like Cedric. You should talk to..."

More pointless student conversations. So distracting. Anyway, hidden intelligences... maybe he should return to experimenting with his pouch; he had never come to a firm conclusion about how it worked, but it seemed to have at least some kind of rudimentary intelligence running it. Working with artificial intelligence could be very dangerous, and Harry doubted wizards had thought deeply about those ramifications. It could be important to quickly determine how far they had gotten.

"...going to jump off the tower, we should take feather-falling potions first..."

Maybe he'd start by listing magical objects, spells, etc. that required a hidden, non-trivial intelligence to- Wait, what?

Harry stopped and walked backward to where Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan where talking at the Gryffindor table. "...get feather-falling potion from Hogsmeade for us?"

"Excuse me", Harry began, "I thought I overheard a more interesting conversation than normal. You guys planning something fun?"

"Since when are you interested in anything besides reading and homework?", Dean asked. "You've never wanted to play anything before."

"Maybe he's planning to go to McGonagall or Sprout?", Seamus added. "Maybe he's hoping he can win some more precious house points."

Okay, he understood the homework comment, but when had he gotten a reputation as a snitch? The Gryffindors had all loved Harry after his first class with Snape. That sure hadn't lasted long.

Harry sighed. "Like I said, it sounded interesting. Something about maybe wanting feather-falling potion before jumping off a tower. That implies you intend to fly off the tower somehow, but want a safety in case something goes wrong. Maybe you found a spell for enchanting flying brooms? No, we fly every week anyway and you wouldn't need the tower." Harry thought for a moment while they waited, bemused. He continued, "You're not really going to fly, just fall. And primarily intend to use something besides the potion. I don't expect wizards would have many things like that when there are already flying brooms and feather-falling potions. But there are muggle things, like bungee cords, parachutes, and gliders." He saw surprise in their expressions, "gliders it is then. I'm in."

"Yeah, I was telling Seamus about muggle technology. He didn't believe they can fly. So we're going to try to transfigure a hang-glider."

"I'm still not convinced muggles can fly. So potions or no potions, you're going first."

"Yeah, it sounds like a lot of fun. I'm totally in", Harry repeated.

"And why, exactly should we let you tag along?", Seamus smirked.

"One, I have _feather-falling potion_ already", Harry pulled a vial out of his pouch and gestured with it as he continued. "Two, I know some third years who would probably be willing to help with the transfiguration. That would be a really big job for first years. And three, I have an aerodynamics book that, while it's mostly about airplane design, I'm pretty sure has a detailed picture of a hang-glider. And the equations to figure out some of the details." Harry paused. "You know what, I don't know why I should let you guys tag along with me."

"Let's not make any quick decisions", Dean said. "You've made some good points, but do you really think you can transfigure something that works right from just a picture in a book? I think we can work together on this."

"Playing with muggle flying machines?" Terry Boot asked, having heard a most of the conversation while standing nearby. "I expect crazy things like that from Gryffindors but from you... never mind."

"Well, then you're not invited", Dean said. He then stuck out his tongue at Terry.

Terry rolled his eyes and waved dismissively, "Like I would trust a muggle flying machine. And why? They can't be as good as brooms, so what's the point?"

Harry's mind marked this subject as boring and asked, "I've been wondering; how exactly does feather-falling potion work? What does it do? Maybe we should do a few experiments..."

"You're not worried about what will happen to the universe this time, Harry?", Terry smirked.

"How would a falling potion affect the universe, Terry? That's just silly", Harry answered.

Dean and Seamus glanced at each other and frowned. "What do you mean, experiment?" asked Seamus.

"Does it reduce your terminal velocity or your acceleration or both? When does it start doing that? What happens if you take half a dose? We weigh less than the average adults these potions are intended for. Do children fall more slowly or can we fall over a longer distance? How far can you use it to fall anyway? And how long will it still work after you take one: If I'd taken one during the first week, and hadn't fallen until now, would it still protect me?"

"Oh, they're good for about 30 minutes. I don't think there's a distance limit: I think you can fall for the whole 30 minutes if you start high enough. I don't know if anyone's done it though. I don't know about children; why would weight matter?" Seamus answered.

"To put it simply, it takes less effort to hold up light things than heavy things; that's what weight means. I haven't figured out the pattern for when size and weight matter to magic, so we should test this. Maybe give a dose to a small animal and drop it from a broom..."

"Hey, Kevin, mind if we give your cat a feather-falling potion", Dean called excitedly, snatching the potion vial from Harry and running a short distance over to Kevin Entwhistle. "We want to check something."

"That seems like a waste", Kevin responded. "Cats can already turn and land safely when they fall from most heights." His eyes widened as he continued, "unless you think the combination will make a cat fall up, roll upside-down, then fall down, then turn right-side-up again, repeating until it spins in place faster and faster."

"That sound like something muggles say about buttered toast attached to a cat's back", Harry interjected. "But it's a joke; the universe doesn't really work that way. Magic doesn't always respect common sense, but still... Never mind, I don't know what will happen; that's the point of testing things." That was all the encouragement Dean needed to empty the vial of feather-fall potion into the saucer of milk Kevin had prepared for his cat.

After it finished drinking a moment later, Kevin picked up the cat, then lowered his arms slowly. The cat did not follow. "Huh", said multiple students.

Harry looked at the cat, hovering a little over a meter off the ground, and started giggling uncontrollably, having thought of a fun way to renew his desired reputation, at least temporarily. The others looked on in confusion as Harry picked up a napkin, shook it open, and touched his wand to it. A few seconds later, he had a blue cat collar attached to a cat-sized red cape. He put the collar (which closed magnetically rather than using a physical latch; Harry had been planning to write his next transfiguration essay about the application of Topology to transfiguration safety) on the cat and then pushed it forward. The cat sailed along the Gryffindor table with a cape billowing behind it.

"You still think that was a waste of a potion?", Dean asked Kevin. Kevin shook his head without looking away from the cat.

"I so need to get a cape", Lavender announced to no one in particular.

"When and why would you wear a cape. That's just dumb", Parvati said firmly. Lavender just gave her an annoyed look before turning to watch the cat again.

After the cat flew for a few seconds, it panicked and twisted in the air such that it was flying feet-first. It spread out its body, quickly slowing down and dropping. When it neared the floor, it turned itself right-side-up and tried to run away. Unfortunately, during this attempt, it kicked off of the floor and shot across the room, quickly gaining altitude and loudly expressing its displeasure.

While the others were distracted watching the cat, Terry quietly backed away, sat at the Ravenclaw table, and loaded a plate with food, intending to pretend he had been there the whole time.

The cat turned again in time to safely 'land' and rebound off of a wall. It stopped yowling after it leveled out and hovered 10 meters above the ground. It shook its head then licked itself for a moment.

"We have to do something about this", Fred told George.

George nodded. "He's making us look bad. We have to do something really big."

"And soon", Fred concluded.

The cat was now staring intently at a nearby area of the Slytherin table, hanging at an odd angle and looking ready to pounce. Suddenly, it dove toward the table and grabbed a steak off of Draco's plate with its mouth. Without stopping, it took a few strides and jumped, overturning several plates and flying away. It landed on the opposite wall a moment later.

Draco slowly lowered his face into his hands, "Being friends with Harry can't be worth it. Can it?", he asked quietly.

"You'd think the scion of the great house of Malfoy would find friendship with the Boy-Who-Lived-And-Does-Weird-Things more valuable than some easily-replaced food", Daphne whispered to Tracey, rolling her eyes.

"Draco knows that", Tracey replied. "But he doesn't know that we know that. He's not an idiot. But he thinks everyone else is. He's not good at, um, modeling the way other people think. Or something."

"What?"

"It's something I overheard Harry say. I'm almost sure it applies here", Tracey answered.

"You _overhear_ a lot of what Harry says, don't you?", Daphne asked, amused.

Tracey attempted to act offended before they paused to watch as the cat dropped the steak, dove and caught it in midair, holding it between its forepaws and biting it while slowly drifting, upside-down, toward the center of the hall.

"I have a plan", Tracey said, quietly and ominously.

Daphne shook her head, "I'm going to regret asking. What?"

"When Professor Quirrell's extracurricular activities start up, I'm asking him to put me on Harry's team. We'll spend lots of time together then."

"Yeah, that's not going to happen, you'll be on Draco's team with all the other Slytherins."

"You know there won't be as many Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs signed up as Slytherins and Gryffindors, so there'll be a Slytherin team led by Draco, a Gryffindor team led by someone, a Slytherclaw team led by Harry, and a Gryffinpuff team probably led by Susan. And you know how much Professor Quirrell likes Harry, so everyone who's enthusiastic about working with Harry will be on Harry's team."

"You might be right", Daphne said hesitantly. "I wonder if Professor Quirrell will let me join Susan's team. I don't think I could stand to work for Draco or Harry."

"Slytherins and Hufflepuffs working together? Daphne, that's just silly."

While the students watched the cat's antics, Professor McGonagall walked toward the Gryffindor table. Dean noticed her first and quietly nudged Harry. As Harry turned, she asked, "Mr. Potter, are you responsible for this?"

Harry decided that he was at least 60% responsible for everything that had happened, but that there was no point to implicating anyone else. He knew his best option for avoiding detentions and preserving house points would be to lose quickly, but there were more important things than mere house points. "Yes; I've discovered what happens when a cat takes a feather-falling potion. I assume you'd like to turn into a cat and try it? It looks really fun."

Seamus and Dean glanced at each other in surprise. McGonagall snapped, "No, Mr. Potter. I want you to resolve this situation, immediately."

"It's okay if you want to try it; that's what I'd be doing right now if I could turn into a cat. And you shouldn't worry about what the other professors will think. People are happier when they do fun things without worrying about being judged for them. There's a study-"

"Thank you for your opinion of my mental health, Mr. Potter", she said sarcastically. "Restrain the cat."

Harry shrugged mentally and raised his wand. "Wingardium leviosa." He caught the cat and directed it to Kevin, who reached out and held it. "Finite incantatem." Kevin moved his arms to support the cat's restored weight as the napkin slipped off its back to the floor.

"Twenty house points from Ravenclaw, and you'll be serving a detention with me after your last class today, Mr. Potter. Bring your textbooks."

"Oh, good. I've been meaning to ask you some questions about animagus stuff. This will give me a good opportunity."

She turned and walked away quickly, apparently pretending not to have heard. Harry thought he caught her lips twitch upward as she turned, but couldn't be sure.

"Thanks for covering for us; you're a real Gryffindor, Harry", Dean announced. They either missed or decided to ignore Harry's visible shudder.

"You seem much less upset than I would have thought. Getting in trouble and losing house points", Seamus added.

Harry shrugged, "when someone doesn't act the way you expect, it's evidence that your mental model of them is incomplete or incorrect."

They briefly looked confused, and Harry added "That was totally worth it."

Dean commented, "I can't believe she gave you a detention for that."

Harry shrugged again, "I don't really mind; I have to do homework some time. And Hogwarts is still better about things like that than my last school."

"What do you mean?"

"My last teacher had a rule: if something made me giggle for longer than fifteen seconds, I was supposed to assume there was a rule against it. Actually, any time I laughed, she usually made me stand in the corner and not touch anything for about fifteen minutes. Luckily the teachers here haven't implemented such an unpleasant and anti-intellectual policy. So, hang-gliding this weekend?"

r/HPMOR/comments/2dbydo/false_memories_spoliers_27/cjpkh8r

EY may not have had anything specific in mind, but it's still worth thinking about. He explained it to the Weasleys, so it was unlikely to involve the time-turner or invisibility cloak. He hadn't discovered partial transfiguration or first cast a patronus yet. That leaves a handful of options:

he applied something he learned in class

he applied something he read while working with Hermione

it involved one of the magic items in his inventory (comed-tea, gillyweed, feather-falling potion)

I'm going to go with the feather-falling potion; cats basically already have that ability, so the potion probably gives them the ability to glide for a few minutes off of a running jump or something. Hovering a small cat toy (or maybe releasing the quidditch-squito) would result in something approaching a prank (picture a feline seeker doing loops and barrel rolls around the great hall for no apparent reason).

"How would a falling potion affect the universe, Terry? That's just silly", Harry answered, mentally adding, it's not like we're playing with time machines or anything. He continued, "I could tell you about the last time, but you'd have to be obliviated afterwards. That would make the whole thing moot, because then you'd be confused again. So rationally, so should just skip ahead and pretend we've already done that."

previous working titles: Entwhistle's Cat (Better than Quidditch) (Falling or Flying)


	3. Swept Up, Pt 1

Chapter 31 1/4: Swept Up, Pt 1

T -7 days

"Hey, Harry", Hermione said, looking up from her book, "do you have any more of those green, self-cleaning fizzy drinks? I'm really craving one for some reason."

Huh, Harry thought, that hasn't happened before. He called for a comed-tea from his pouch and handed it to her, wondering how exactly he was likely to surprise Hermione. She should've been expecting the conversation that was coming.

"You're not going to have one with me?", she asked. He _had_ suddenly started feeling thirsty. This was probably not a good sign, but he still retrieved a second comed-tea. They popped the tops nearly simultaneously and began drinking.

"You're staring out into space, Harry. What's on your mind."

"The next battle for Quirrell's armies, actually. I think it's in both our interests for Chaos and Sunshine to join forces. Dragon Army has a big advantage."

"Hm", Hermione said thoughtfully, "Maybe. I'll have to discuss that with my captains."

Harry was surprised by this reaction, but not nearly comed-tea level surprised. "That means 'no' doesn't it? I thought you would jump at the chance actually. Sunshine is at a significant disadvantage for this battle, so the logical choice is for you to work with us."

"A few of your assumptions there are wrong. I assume you've figured out by now where the Sunshine Regiment plan for winning the first battle came from?" Hermione asked smugly.

"I'd guess that you read a book on tactics but I don't know which and I can't imagine a real war where that tactic would have been wise. Or anything other than suicidal."

"Not even close, Harry. It was actually Zabini's plan."

This time the comed-tea was satisfied. When Harry stopped coughing, he asked "you gave control of your army to Zabini? Why? I thought you wanted that position?"

"No, Harry. I'm the general. I just listen to the ideas and advice of _my_ soldiers."

"You think I don't listen to my soldiers or let them have ideas? That's the opposite of what I'm about. I encourage them to be creative and think about what they should do all the time. And I'm pretty sure Professor Quirrell set this battle up deliberately as part of an ongoing effort to see what it takes to make the different armies work together. There's no way he didn't know his students' skills by the time he assigned people to armies."

They were both silent for a moment. Hermione took another drink and abruptly laughed, spraying Harry with comed-tea. "Oh! Sorry, Harry." she said immediately.

"You're forgiven if you tell me what exactly was so funny", he replied, wiping the already-disappearing liquid with his robe.

"It occurred to me", she began, "that if Sunshine needs to make an alliance, working with the Dragon Army for this battle would at least guarantee us a partial victory, or second place, or something. We don't know that Sunshine and Chaos can beat them even working together." Harry said nothing and Hermione couldn't read his expression; it wasn't dark and angry nor at all concerned or annoyed as she had expected, but merely blank. Controlled.

* * *

T -4 days

"Professor Quirrell has provided each army with 24 brooms", Draco addressed his lieutenants. "Apparently we'll be fighting an aerial battle."

Gregory smiled. "This is going to be so much fun. Easy, but fun."

"Not necessarily. Generals Chaos and Sunshine will know we have the most skilled fliers. They'll probably work together", Terry warned.

Vincent replied "Zabini said Potter offered an alliance but Granger was too proud to accept it."

Draco thought for a moment then said "That may be true, or it may be deliberate disinformation to make us overconfident. Or maybe Zabini just needs to insult Granger in front of the other Slytherins occasionally. Working for her army isn't a good way to gain political power in Slytherin."

"Do the Sunnies have a single decent flier?", Gregory asked. "You could probably take their whole group yourself, General. Potter shot me down once but he had several soldiers covering him. One-on-one, it shouldn't even be a challenge. If I have a few others to keep him distracted while I shoot down the rest of his army, I could probably take all of them down. This battle should be really easy even if they do work together."

"Don't underestimate Potter. Or Granger with Zabini's help. The more the odds are against them the less conventionally they'll fight."

"How many options do they even have?", Vincent asked. "They'll all be on broomsticks just like us. We'll all be in the air, so no one will be casting somnium or any new creative spells for safety reasons. That's Quirrell's rule: luminos only for targeting pilots and brooms. And they can't pretend to get shot either because a hit is obvious."

"I know Potter better than that. The fact that I can't think of any alternatives doesn't mean anything because he's more creative than I am. We'll have to send out scouts first to get an idea of what they'll be doing. If both armies start out moving toward us, it means they're planning a joint preemptive attack and if they're moving toward each other, it means they're planning to get into a joint defensive position. If they're not moving, they're probably not working together, but they won't be fighting each other first. And they'll probably be setting up preplanned defensive positions. And they won't be using straightforward tactics; they'll be setting any kind of trap they can think of while our scouts are still approaching." Draco paused momentarily and shuddered slightly, attempting to imagine what Harry might do.

Terry interrupted his thoughts, "I saw Chaos and Sunshine practicing earlier this week. I thought it was strange that they had so many brooms and were training with them so much, but now it makes sense."

"Did you see anything useful? What exactly were they practicing?"

"Sunshine appeared to be practicing flying and dodging. It looked like they had one or two brooms in the air at a time and everyone else spread out firing at them from multiple directions. The pilots were also practicing firing back at the soldiers on the ground. So just general combat flight skills, not really any noticeable tactics."

"I wonder... could she be planning to leave people on the ground during the battle?" Draco pondered.

"That would be dumb; they can't move or maneuver as fast. Maybe if they had a fortress of some kind, but not in the open", Gregory responded quickly.

"We're fighting over the forest, so they might have enough cover for it to work. Or maybe they're just so bad at combat flight that they're more accurate, slightly faster, and overall less useless on the ground than in the air. What about Chaos?"

"General Chaos mostly had his soldiers over the lake going through some kind of crazy training drill on brooms, with hard turns and loops and rolls and dives." Terry reported.

"They may have been practicing impressive-looking stuff just to mislead us into believing they're better than they really are. Potter would totally do that", Draco observed.

"I doubt it. I also saw a bit of combat practice", Terry continued, "but it was all just pathetic. General Chaos looks like he'll be a big challenge, but the others are more likely to fall off their brooms. In fact, most of them had fallen into the lake by the time I had to leave."

"Oh. I assume the combat came before the looping?" Terry nodded and Draco continued. "That makes sense. I wonder how good they can get with one week of practice. It's probably a misdirection so we'd expect them to fly and fight normally when they'll really do something weird."

"We usually send scouts, so they'll be expecting that." Draco began, "But we'll still need scouts to report back where their armies are going and what tactics they're using. Lieutenant Goyle, you'll scout the Sunshine side this time because you usually scout Chaos, and Potter probably has a plan for you by now. If enough people are shooting at you, they'll eventually get a lucky shot. I'll need to think of something else for Chaos."

Draco paused and thought for a moment. In combat, as in life, everyone is either a Slytherin or a Hufflepuff in the end. He could use the less skilled as pawns to determine what tricks and traps had been laid so the skilled soldiers could stay on the offensive and destroy the enemy. He nodded to himself; it was a good plan and a simple plan. All he had to do was figure out who was which and avoid calling anyone a pawn where they would hear about it. "Find out when everyone is available", he instructed. "We need to schedule some practice time."

* * *

T -6 days

Hermione sighed. Why did it have to be brooms? She gestured at a pile of brooms in the corner of the office, no, _her_ office, and addressed the Sunshine Regiment: "Any ideas for a broomstick battle?"

"I hate to admit it, but I'm rubbish on a broom", Blaise answered.

"I think most of us are", Anthony added, "I think the defense professor wants the other teams to catch up on points. We've been doing surprisingly well."

Ron frowned.

"What's wrong, Ron? You can't possibly be worse on a broom than I am."

"I'm good on a broom. I'm bloody brilliant", Ron announced, a little too loudly. "And Malfoy is mine. Nobody get between him and me. It's just that these brooms are just such trash. An Airsweep 72, a version 4 Swift, a Lightbroom 105; those are all twenty years old. A Radio Flier? Have they even made those in the last 50 years?"

"Radio Flier? That sounds like it should be a remote controlled airplane or something, not a magic broom", Hermione commented. "The only way that could be a less appropriate name is if it were given to something with wheels."

"A Cumulus 500? I've never even heard of that brand", Ron continued, stepping away from the pile in disgust. "Is it too much to ask for a Nimbus? Or a Firebolt or a Comet? They're almost as good. Even the Cleansweeps we use for class are better th-"

"Really, you've never heard of a Cumulus?" Ernie interrupted. "They're made by the same company as Nimbus; that's just their racing series. The Cirrus is their low cost, general purpose broom for people traveling outside the floo system. The Stratus is their multi-person broom series, and the Cumulus is their heavy-lift industrial series. The Cumulus 500 lifts 500kg."

Daphne smirked, "hey, Ron, here's a Nimbus."

Ron's eyes lit up as he exclaimed, "Oh, that's perfect. I want that one."

"It's still twenty years old", Daphne responded, rolling her eyes.

"Don't you know what that is?" Ron asked excitedly. "That's a Nimbus 300! That's the broom that made the Nimbus name. It put Redline, Lightbroom, and Swift out of business, and Airsweep never recovered. It's easily the fastest broom in that bunch." A sad look came over his face and he slowly added, "Hermione, it's the best broom; as general, you should take it."

"That'd be a waste; if I rode _any_ broom at full speed, I'd probably die. Anyway, why exactly is the _fastest_ broom the _best_ broom? We're not playing quidditch here... Anyway, the first question to consider is whether we should ally with Chaos Legion on this battle. Harry offered earlier, and while I'd personally prefer not to, we should discuss it. Harry seemed to think it was important, but are the Dragons really that good (or are we really all that bad)?"

"Ron's not the only one here who can fly; I'm pretty good too", Susan answered. "And don't worry, I'll help you."

"That's not really where I was going with that", Hermione said, "Apparently we don't have as many good fliers as the other armies. Are there any strategies or tactics that we can use to win anyway, or do we have to work with Chaos? And anyone hanging around to protect me is just going to be slowed down and more vulnerable. We need the opposite of that."

"An alliance may sound like a good idea at first, because the Dragon Army has a big advantage on brooms", Blaise began, thoughtfully, "but I don't see how it's likely to benefit us in the end. Either the Dragons can defeat all of us together, in which case, it wouldn't matter, or it will hand victory to Chaos by helping them beat the Dragons before they finish us off." Blaise's eyes lit up. "Ooh, I know the opposite of people protecting you: we use you as bait."

The Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs in the group looked appalled. "Bloody Slytherins", Ron muttered.

The meeting continued for a short time longer before they had agreed on their strategy and tactics.

"I'd love to see the look on Draco's face", Blaise concluded.

"Okay. Sounds like a plan", Hermione concluded. "We should schedule some extra practice time for this one; Show of hands, who can make it Saturday? Okay, let's meet Saturday after breakfast."

* * *

T -6 days

Harry gathered the Chaos Legion members near Hogwarts Lake for practice. "We're all getting broomsticks for the next battle", he began, gesturing at a nearby stack of brooms. "Apparently the mental illness wizards refer to as 'quidditch' requires many of the skills needed in aerial dueling and apparently Professor Quirrell assigned a disproportionate number of quidditch fanatics to Dragon Army. And for whatever reason, Sunshine has a lot of soldiers who are scared of heights or bad at flying for whatever reason."

"Um, General?" Tracey also waved to make sure she had his attention. "Everyone who's really into quidditch volunteered to join Draco's team because they thought you or General Granger might schedule meetings or practices to make them miss quidditch matches or something."

"Oh. That makes sense. It's not like I've looked at that schedule or anything, so... Wait, Ron's in Sunshine; are there people more obsessed with quidditch than him?"

"Ron's obsessed with two things", Lavender answered, "loving quidditch and hating Malfoy. And no one in Gryffindor wants to be seen backing down from a fight, so he had to join an army. It was really funny watching him try to decide what to do."

"Huh. Okay. Anyway, we need a strategy that can defeat Captain Goyle and General Malfoy, and then finish off whatever's left of Sunshine Regiment. Our goal for today is to explore effective methods of fighting broomstick-to-broomstick using luminos. For a first step, I want to get a feel for what aerial combat is like and what the other first years are likely to do. So we're going to do some one-on-one practice. Any volunteers to go first?"

Lavender jumped up waiving her arm. Harry gestured toward the pile of brooms while rising into the air on his own. A moment later Lavender was airborne as well. "Let's stay over the lake" , he called, "And everyone else, wands out to catch anyone who falls. Whenever you're ready". Harry kept his wand in his pocket; at the moment he was only planning to observe and dodge. Lavender pointed her broom toward him and accelerated, then lifted her wand arm and began firing bursts of red light. Harry slowly moved perpendicular to her flight path, making small corrections up and down when one of her shots threatened to get close. Even when she passed the place where Harry had started out, they were at a distance that made dodging largely unnecessary. At that point, she put her wand hand back on the broom and spun around to face Harry, then brought up her wand and resumed firing while he continued to move away.

This stalemate continued for a few minutes. "How can firing hexes from a broomstick be this boring and frustrating?", Lavender asked herself, "This should have been awesome." Then she saw Harry draw his wand and produce three red lights, one headed directly at her, and two aimed different distances in front of her. "Okay, less boring", she thought as she dove under the lights. She glanced back to see him flying almost directly at her, firing another set. She dodged up and right, not having a chance to fire a counter-attack, thinking, "Crap, what happened to boring? Why did I volunteer to go first? Crap, that sounded way too Hufflepuff." She leveled out and glanced over again, seeing three horizontally-spaced shots, much closer this time, preventing her from going left or right. She dove below them, directly into the path of a fourth shot she hadn't seen. She then descended and headed back to the group. Harry landed at the same time.

"Okay, who saw something noteworthy?" Harry asked.

"You're pretty awesome at this", Lavender announced, "that's noteworthy, right?"

"You didn't have to do any dodging", Neville added, "you could just stay out of range until you were ready to attack."

"Yes. Do you know why?", Harry asked. Neville just shook his head.

"She was only flying in straight lines. Slowly." Theodore answered.

"Yeah, very amateur flying", Tracey added, smirking at Lavender.

Lavender stepped forward and opened her mouth to respond, but Harry interrupted, "So you two think you can do better?" They nodded. Harry gestured upward, "Go for it. Get some altitude and some distance from each other, and I'll throw red sparks as the signal to start. Stay over the lake, and try to stay close to the group so we can catch you if necessary."

They nodded and took off. Harry shot red sparks from his wand and the opponents accelerated toward each other, flying much faster than Lavender had. They raised their wands and began firing, missing widely, as Tracey's broom went into a dive and Theodore's broom rolled upside down leaving him hanging on with both hands and crossed ankles.

"Now who's the amateur!" Lavender yelled.

"Feel better now?" Seamus drawled.

"Yeah, actually. That made my first try look really good."

"I wish Harry would hurry up and tell us his secret. He's making everyone look bad in comparison." Dean added.

"He's not going to tell us. He's going to keep asking annoying questions until we guess, like he always does. You hadn't figured that out yet?" Lavender responded.

While Tracey and Theodore recovered and moved back to the group, Harry turned around, smiling. "So what's the next question, Lavender?"

"You're asking questions about questions now? That's just not fair."

"I know the question", Tracey yelled. "We were deliberately trying to fly faster than she was while we were dueling. And we lost control of our brooms. Did the higher speed cause the loss of control?"

"That's a relevant question. What's the answer?"

"We have to do an experiment. We try the same thing except slower."

Harry smiled, "Good answer. Go ahead."

Tracey and Theodore again flew directly toward one another, but at a lower speed. A moment later they returned to the group, both thoroughly painted with glowing red spots.

"So what's the question now?" Harry asked.

"No question, I just need some practice to figure out how to speed up and slow down without diving or climbing and how to turn without rolling over with only one hand on the broom." Tracey answered. Theodore nodded in agreement.

Harry smiled. "Exactly. We're all going to practice one-handed flying." Harry cast luminos at two trees on the far side of the lake. "Line up, and one at a time I want you to fly toward the tree on the left until you get to the center of the lake, doing the steepest climb and steepest dive you can manage, then make a hard right turn, and fly along the center of lake until you're even with the other tree while doing a roll. There, I want you to pitch up, so you're flying vertically, roll right until you're looking back here, then pitch down and fly back to shore, while doing a loop. It's okay if you can't do all the maneuvers, or any of the maneuvers, on your first try. The point is to build up to it, to get comfortable with as much speed and maneuverability as possible."

About 20 minutes and 18 wet students later, Harry was ready to try a new plan. "Okay, some of you are doing pretty well at this. You can practice fighting over there. The rest of us are going to try some other things... come over here for a minute so I can demonstrate..."

Ten minutes later, the others joined in the running mock battle, which spread to cover most of the lake. Those joining the battle had a few disadvantages, but overall, putting an air force together had been simpler than it could have been. Harry was briefly relieved that they didn't have to figure out how to get an airplane to fire a machine gun through its own propeller reliably or anything crazy like that for this battle.

Before the next practice session, Harry spent some time reading about wizard flying battle tactics, for which there were few references. Apparently, brooms were often used to transport troops or for surveillance and reconnaissance, but were rarely used for direct combat. Any country could hire a powerful enough wizard to create a nearly perfect anti-aircraft defense using anti-flying wards which allowed exceptions for allies, therefore the idea of air superiority fighters or airborne ground-attack vehicles had never evolved in the wizarding world. And Professor Quirrell had explicitly banned anti-flying jinxes. Harry smiled; Draco wouldn't know what hit him.


	4. Swept Up, Pt 2

Chapter 31 1/4: Swept Up, part 2

Fight Day: T -20 minutes

Harry slid his ring into his pouch and turned to address his soldiers.

"Sunshine will have nothing to gain by attacking us or the Dragons early, and we don't have any incentive to attack first either. Professor Quirrell may call a draw if no one attacks at all, so there will be pressure on Draco to attack first. He'll probably send out scouts, because he always sends out scouts, and then attack for real. I don't know who he'll attack first; it would be great if he attacks Sunshine, and then comes after us with whatever he has left, so Murphy's Law indicates that he'll probably attack us first. And then we'll have to deal with whatever General Sunshine has waiting for us.

"Lieutenant Nott, when the gong rings, take your soldiers out and set up the ambush we discussed. If the Dragons send high value targets with their scouts, especially Goyle, shoot them in the back after they pass. Otherwise, we'll handle them, and you just stay hidden until the main army arrives. Then approach and hit Goyle from behind. Everyone else, once you get into the air, assume the cylindrical defensive formation, swarming to prevent anyone from counting us, and remember general orders #1 and #2 and your tactical training.

* * *

T -20 minutes

The Dragon Army stood at attention as Draco spoke, "As you know, the average first year student cannot effectively fight from a broom, and Dragon Army has a significant advantage in flying skill. Chaos Legion's General Potter, Mr. Nott, and Miss Brown are all very skilled on brooms, as are Mr. Weasley and Miss Bones of the Sunshine Regiment. However, Mr. Goyle is by far the best of our class on a broom, and many among us are more than a match for anyone in the other armies. In a fair fight, I would expect us to defeat both Chaos and Sunshine even if they work together."

A few days earlier, Draco had actually had to walk away from where his army was practicing so they wouldn't see how upset he was. Out of 24 soldiers, including himself, 8 of them, again including himself, had spent a significant amount of time either playing quidditch with friends and family or taking professional lessons (all presumably intending to try out for the house teams at Hogwarts starting second year). Those soldiers had readily shown the ability to substitute a wand for throwing, catching, or batting, and would make a formidable force for the coming battle. The other 16... would hopefully also prove useful.

Draco continued, "However, that means we can expect them not to fight fairly. Both of their armies have been training heavily for this battle, but our spies haven't determined their plans. I don't know what tricks they will produce, so fight conservatively and be aware that unexpected things will happen. Expect that, somehow, what looks like an easy score will turn into an ambush. Let the battle be a slow war of attrition where the most skilled at flying and aiming hexes will decide the battle. Those of you who are skilled have instructions to target the skilled members of the other armies. Those of you who are less experienced are to stay disciplined, try to take out the unskilled masses of the other armies when possible, but be ready for new orders when targets of opportunity arise." For example, serving as human shields or flying into obvious traps to see what happens, he added silently.

"Captain Goyle will be taking four soldiers and flying toward the Sunshine Regiment for a very important scouting and stealth attack mission. Goyle, you are allowed to take out their soldiers when you can do it safely, but let me be clear: I'm not asking your team to take out their army alone. Your priority is to learn their strategy and tactics; reducing their numbers when convenient is a secondary goal." Gregory nodded in acknowledgement, but still clearly wasn't happy with this role.

"Captain Boot will similarly be taking four soldiers toward Chaos Legion. He and one of the others are to stay far back to ensure they can return safely with the important information they will collect. The other three of you are to approach the enemy, do a quick attack run and then return. If you have an opportunity to stay longer and inflict some damage, feel encouraged to do so. Otherwise just get back here."

* * *

T 0

A gong rang out and 72 brooms rose into the air.

Gregory and his subordinates headed out at a speed that made him grind his teeth. Why was everyone _so_ slow? But the boss wanted this done carefully, so that's what they'd do.

Finally, they saw the enemy. They were clearly headed to join the Chaos Legion, despite Zabini's lies. Most of them were barely visible in the distance, while Granger herself, with only a couple of Hufflepuffs, were much closer, far behind the rest and clearly unable to keep up.

"You two", he said, gesturing at the two slowest, "take them out, then catch up with us. We're going to intercept the main force of their army." He didn't hesitate before spinning around and accelerating toward the Sunnies in the distance while two soldiers almost fell off their brooms trying to follow and the other two grinned evilly and moved to take on the Sunshine general.

A minute later, they caught up to the Sunshine Regiment. Strangely, there were only about a dozen of them. And Weasley and Bones were missing; there must be another group further ahead. This was terrible discipline: the army should never have been allowed to break up like that. Gregory called to the others, "move in, fire at the four in the back, then turn and retreat. If none of them follow you, turn back around and do another attack run." He then veered right and dropped to skim the treetops, narrowly avoiding the tallest branches.

Tigers weren't considered a very Slytherin animal but they were Gregory's favorite: the power, the speed, the lethality, and most of all, the ability to patiently wait, unseen, until the right time to pounce; they're everything a good Slytherin should be. After four Sunshine soldiers turned and chased his two Dragons (who had, of course, missed every shot, which had been painful to watch) he silently waited, until they had all passed him, then pulled up behind them. Less than a minute later, all four had been eliminated; Daphne, Parvati, and two whose names he couldn't recall.

He glanced back and saw the remaining eight or ten had turned to face him. He was tempted to ignore his orders and take them all on alone, but controlled himself. This was a good decision, he decided: he saw movement up ahead that appeared to be Chaos Legion, possibly close enough to send reinforcements before he could finish and depart.

He glanced the other way and saw... Granger and her other soldiers approaching? How incompetent and useless could his other two soldiers have been? They had a perfect opportunity to defeat some of the least skilled broom pilots he'd ever seen, from behind, no less, and had somehow managed to fail. In that moment, Gregory understood the angry look General Malfoy got sometimes, when someone didn't follow his plans correctly. Then his eyes widened in surprise as he realized what had happened. He called to his two remaining soldiers, "come on, we're leaving now. We have to report back to Dragon Army".

* * *

T -6 days

Blaise's eyes lit up. "Ooh, I know the opposite of people protecting you: we use you as bait."

The Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs in the group looked appalled, but Hermione was interested, "Give me some more details."

"Well, we could start with a group of us flying in some direction just above the trees, with you and me and a few others falling behind like we just can't keep up. Then, when someone attacks, our best fliers, who were just below us, dodging trees out of sight, fly up and ambush them."

Hermione nodded, "I like it; that sounds promising."

Blaise continued, "And we should probably head toward Chaos Legion as soon as possible. They're not likely to be a match for the Dragon Army, so they won't want to deplete their forces attacking us first. We can probably put Chaos between us and the Dragons and then hide until the Dragon Army finishes them off. Our best chance will be to pick off the survivors while they're trying to regroup."

Hermione nodded again.

* * *

T 0

Theodore Nott lead four additional soldiers quickly away from the rest of Chaos Legion. When they could barely recognize them as people, rather than flying green blurs, they descended into the canopy, resting on branches where they were camouflaged but still had a relatively unobstructed view of the sky. It was only a minute or two later that they watched the Dragon Army scouts fly overhead.

They called out names as they recognized the Dragons. "No high value targets, they won't last long", Theodore concluded. "We wait here until Dragon's main attack force arrives."

They watched quietly as the scouts flew on. They saw a flurry of activity and a large number of red flashes before everything settled again and three dots moved off of the battlefield. "Defeated in detail", Theodore noted, smiling.

* * *

T 5 minutes

Terry Boot rushed back to General Malfoy, and quickly reported, "Chaos Legion is holding position over their starting location. It looked like they were just flying in a couple of circles at different altitudes. The others flew right up to the formation and got shot pretty quickly. It looked like more people were firing more accurately than I expected, so they may be more skilled than we had believed, but it was a straight-forward fight with no traps or secret weapons."

While Terry was talking, Gregory arrived and waited impatiently for him to finish. "Sunshine Regiment is moving to join up with Chaos Legion. They had their army broken into two groups; they made it look like their less capable fliers were falling behind, but they really had their best people hidden in the trees below them. I lost two soldiers to that trap, but I took out four from their lead group."

"Okay, we know where the battle will be, but we have conflicting data about whether they're working together. We'll have to assume they are, and that we'll see Chaos Legion alone, only to have Sunshine Regiment pop out of somewhere when we're least prepared for them. Everyone stay on the lookout and remember your assignments." Draco had thought over various tactics and decided to simply have his best soldiers pair up and attack the best people in whichever army he was facing. The other soldiers were also nominally assigned to these teams, but Draco was mostly hoping they'd follow and block spells meant for the group leaders.

* * *

T 7 minutes

Harry circled over his army, trying to watch every direction. He had instructed his soldiers to alert everyone as soon as they saw movement, but, of course, it was ultimately his responsibility. He thought he caught a glimpse of movement from the direction where the Sunshine Regiment had started, but turned his head and saw nothing. That direction should have been quiet; logically, the Sunnies could not benefit from provoking an early confrontation with Chaos Legion, but of course everyone doesn't always behave logically. And Harry didn't believe Hermione would have agreed to work with Draco but, now that he knew it wasn't unthinkable for her, he had to consider the possibility.

His thoughts were interrupted by several people shouting. He glanced down and saw they were pointing in the direction of Dragon Army. Sure enough, he saw a group of over a dozen green dots in the distance. "All hands to battle stations! This is not a drill! Merlin says execute general order #1 when Lieutenant Nott's team attacks Goyle."

* * *

T 8 minutes

Draco kept his eyes on Harry while his army slowly approached the Chaos Legion defensive formation. The Dragons flew in formation with their battle groups, with the groups lined up side by side. Goyle was on the right, Crabbe on the left, and Draco in the center. The Chaotic soldiers occasionally fired, but were still too far away to be a threat to even the least skilled of his soldiers. Draco tried to fight down the feeling of optimism: it didn't appear that General Chaos had prepared a trap because his soldiers were all basically hovering there, waiting to be cut down. He had to keep reminding himself that this was Harry Potter, so the appearance meant nothing. He was mildly surprised when the majority of Potter's army turned and appeared to retreat, half curving slightly left and the other half right. He was less surprised when someone yelled "five attacking from behind!" He turned to see Goyle luminos one of the attackers while dodging fire from the others and trying to chasing down Theodore. Knowing what was coming next, he yelled "Finch-Fletchley, help Goyle. Everyone else, eyes forward." Immediately after, he was forced to dodge several shots converging on him. Seven Chaotic soldiers, including General Potter, were charging straight at his line. He returned fire at Potter, but didn't have time to aim carefully and his shots were easily avoided. The Chaotic soldiers flew right through his line without slowing down.

Draco spun around, but saw no one. Before he had a chance to find them, he saw what the other two groups had planned: they were flying along his line firing sideways, one group moving from left to right in front and slightly below them, while the other was moving from right to left, behind and below, putting his army in a crossfire without risking friendly fire. And somehow they all appeared to be shooting competently while dodging his army's return fire. He lined up a shot and eliminated Neville while ordering "break formation and attack". He saw red light falling from above and desperately rolled out of the way, allowing him to look up from below his broom before rolling back upright and angling upward. Potter's group had climbed above him and had managed a crossfire from three directions at once.

* * *

T -6 days

"The rest of us are going to try some other things... come over here so I can demonstrate... I want you to hold your wand against the broomstick in your forward hand, like this. Now try to fly the same course the way you normally would, except call luminos whenever you're pointed at the tree on the right or at the ground here." He drew a circle in the dirt with his shoe. Luckily, the luminos spell required no specific wand or hand movements, which was the only reason he had been able to cast it quickly enough to catch Gregory in the first battle. In between watching people dive, spin, or fall into the water, he had tried holding his wand against the broom in various ways and discovered that the spell was not particularly picky.

Five minutes later, Harry could see various levels of dizziness and nausea in people's faces, but the target tree was bright, almost appearing to be on fire. The area on the ground had only a few red spots on it, but the people waiting in line for their next turn had been hit by an improbable number of 'misses'.

"Okay, stop, let's try something else. Hold your wands sideways in your rear hand, like this. Now, you'll fire sideways and you can fly in a circle around a target and keep hitting it. This will mostly be effective against targets moving much more slowly than you, but I predict we'll have some opportunities to use it. You clearly want to fire at other people rather than stationary targets and I want to encourage that. I want one person to fly slowly in a straight line to the other side of the lake and then back. Another person will fly higher and faster, trying to circle the first person and light them up as many times as possible. Then the target goes to the back of the line, and the attacker becomes the new target. Questions?"

"Is the target allowed to fire back?" Dean asked.

"Of course. It's no fun if the attacker doesn't even have to dodge."

Another few minutes later, Harry had them join the others joined in the running mock battle, which spread to cover most of the lake. They were clearly more limited, having to fly directly at someone to attack, but there were pre-existing solutions to that problem...

* * *

T -2 days

"Because most of you need to keep both hands on the broom to fly effectively, you'll have to hold your wand against the broom with your forward hand, in either the forward-firing or sideways-firing configurations we practiced. It restricts wand movement enough to prevent you from casting most spells, but it's good enough for luminos, which is the only spell you'll be using.

"Some of our opponents will be more skilled, but many will not be. They're likely to copy our tactics as quickly as they can. Luckily, muggles have been fighting battles with aircraft, with similarly oriented weapons, for a long time and have invented lots of air combat maneuvers we can use.

"For example, there's a maneuver called an Immelman Turn, which isn't usually a great tactic because it briefly puts you in a vulnerable position, but I think it'll make a nice surprise opening against Draco, before he catches on. Basically, when you're flying forward, you pull up into a vertical climb, let gravity slow you down, and finally flip over into a diving attack. Combined with some distractions, I'm hoping we'll get an opportunity to catch them off guard when we attack them from above."

* * *

T 9 minutes

Harry smiled; first round was bloody, but relatively successful. His 'gunships' had taken out three or four dragons, and his 'fighters' had caught another four or five, though about six of his own people were out of the battle, including Theodore, who never had a chance against Gregory with only four soldiers backing him up. Harry dodged a well-placed shot and regrouped with the others for their next move.

Draco yelled "They're holding their wands against the front of their brooms so they can steer and fire at the same time. Try doing the same if you can't fly and attack otherwise. You have your targets. Go, go, go."

Harry smiled again as he overheard Draco's command and turned to Dean and Seamus, "You ready to keep Draco off my back?" He shot away, angled to the right, while Dean and Seamus moved left. Draco, predictably, went after Harry. Wayne flew alongside Draco while Padma followed Dean and Seamus. Padma, a quick learner, attempted to shoot them while holding her wand against the broom, but having no prior practice with this method was a significant handicap. Along with the fact that Dean and Seamus were flying a fast and tight clockwise turn that she couldn't match.

Harry generally followed a left turn while attempting to move in other directions as randomly-appearing as possible. Until he heard Draco curse and glanced back, seeing him retreat while Wayne, haloed by a red glow, slowly moved away from the battle. Harry flicked his wand back and shot Padma as Dean and Seamus passed behind him.

* * *

T -2 days

"Because those aircraft can't defend themselves or attack from every angle, they typically work in groups. We'll work together in squads like before, but you'll need to be able to leave your squad and rejoin another quickly when necessary. When we're on offense, we'll use delta formations: the main attacker flies in front, then others are behind them, to the right and left, and so on, so everyone has a clean shot forward and can shoot anyone who gets behind the leader. Yes, Lavender?"

"So it's a V shape? Can't we just call it a V formation?"

"No, it's a delta formation. Anyway, the leader will pick a target and fly at them, and everyone else will follow and help. If anyone approaches from the sides or from behind, the closest soldier or soldiers leave the formation and attack them. The goal is just to make them leave the main formation alone so they can continue attacking, so if they run away, just rejoin the nearest formation.

"And the main defensive formation we'll use is called the thatch weave. Basically, split into two groups, fly away from each other, then curve back, cross each other's course, then separate and curve back again. When someone's chasing the other group, you turn harder and it leaves you pointed at the people behind them on the next pass, so you can shoot them down.

"There are some other neat moves you can do on your own, but that one's the most important."

* * *

T 11 minutes

Tracey executed what would have been a Pugachev Cubra, if magic brooms didn't make the description "supermaneuverable" laughable when applied to vectored-thrust jet fighters. While pursued by two Dragons, she held her wand against her broom pointed to the right, then pulled up and hung on to the now vertical broom which nearly stopped in midair. She promptly shot the first soldier, who was unable to avoid overshooting past her right side. The other was able to turn to the left in time, but she was already spinning the broom to the right about its axis and shot him before pitching the broom back to horizontal and accelerating off in the opposite direction from which she'd started out.

Lavender flew passed Harry and announced, "Hey, I'm joining your delta-V thingy. Goyle broke mine."

Delta-V equals exhaust velocity times the log of total mass over dry mass, Harry's mind supplied before he could stop it. There was something important about rocket propulsion that he needed to think about, maybe about whether brooms are really reactionless, or- He dodged a red beam. No time for magical physics now, his formation was playing chicken with Crabbe and Goyle.

The two groups sped past each other with no hits, but the Dragons managed to maneuver behind the Chaotics. Harry saw that Draco was also closing in on Tracey, while Terry Boot had Allen Flint on the run.

"General Order #2", he yelled. The members of Chaos Legion simultaneously released long transfigured streamers, and the Dragons pursuing them, being forewarned of Chaotic tricks, universally pulled up short to avoid them. Of course, none of them knew how to enchant the streamers to do anything useful, and anything they could do with them, using either technology or magic, would probably be banned by the rules for this fight. But it was enough to make the Dragons hesitate, as intended.

* * *

T 12 minutes

Ron and Susan fired at a pair of Dragon soldiers. No one had seen where they'd come, but the soldiers had noticed their appearance in time to dodge and counter-attack. The Sunnies immediately turned and retreated.

Draco watched his people chase Ron and Susan as they fled. They were gaining slowly as the Sunshine soldiers dodged repeatedly. "I expected better from Sunshine", Draco wondered aloud. "They don't fly as well as the Dragon soldiers. And why would Granger send two brooms to attack all of Dragon Army and Chaos Legion? Quick retreat was their best case scenario. That doesn't make any sense; what were they thinking? And especially why attack now? We're still inflicting heavy casualties on each other."

* * *

T -6 days

Blaise continued, "We can probably hide until the Dragon Army finishes Chaos Legion off. Our best chance will be to pick off the survivors while they're trying to regroup."

There was unanimous agreement on this point.

"Maybe most of us could just use the brooms for transportation, then get into positions on the ground", Anthony suggested. "Anyone flying down through the trees would get slowed down and be less maneuverable, so we might be better off there."

"What do you guys know about guerrilla warfare?" Hermione asked.

"Gorillas fight wars? That's terrifying." Hannah answered.

"No, it's not... never mind" Hermione continued. "Anthony gave me an idea. If most of us are on the ground, then we can send a couple of soldiers on brooms to approach Chaos Legion and Dragon Army while they're fighting, attack quickly and then run back into the trees. If anyone follows, the rest of us light them up."

"Something like that will take a lot of speed. And that's why racing brooms are the best", Ron concluded proudly.

"Hm", Hermione said thoughtfully.

* * *

T 13 minutes

After aborting an attack run on Harry and Tracey, Draco looked around for the two soldiers who had gone after the Sunny brooms. He a feeling they were done for today.

A large dark shape rose from the trees below the battle.

"What the hell is wrong with her?", Draco exclaimed as the shape became clear.

"Crap... that's actually kind of awesome", Harry said as he and Tracey stared at the canopy.

* * *

T -6 days

"Hm", Hermione said thoughtfully, "What about the, what was it, Cumulus 500? What should we do with that?"

"We could drop heavy things on the other soldiers", Daphne suggested. "Though Quirrell would probably object to that violating his claws-sheathed-dominance-contest rule."

"We could uproot some trees and build a fort", Ernie said. "That's more like what it was designed for: moving large things a long distance and putting them in the right places."

"It would be nice to have some cover, but I can't imagine that going quickly or turning out well", Blaise responded.

"And I don't know if professors would like us doing that to the forest", Hermione added. "What about people: if we carried extra soldiers they could freely aim and fire without worrying about flying?"

"They'd be slow; easier targets than usual", Susan answered, then shrugged. "But maybe not as easy of targets as they'd be on their own."

"It just seems not right though", Ron added.

Blaise grinned evilly, "Good idea, Ron." Ron turned to him to ask the obvious question but flinched instead.

* * *

T 13 minutes

The object was basically half of Sunshine Regiment. Ernie piloted the Cumulus 500, from which a series of straps suspended an additional nine soldiers on swing-like fabric seats. If swings had 5-point harnesses, anyway. Sunshine had apparently spent five minutes thinking about flight safety, unlike the average wizard.

"Hermione actually built a magical aircraft carrier!" Harry exclaimed. "It looks like a very non-optimal tactic for this battle, but still, points for style."

Everyone briefly paused to watch what the carrier would do. Gregory, Vincent, and another Dragon promptly began an attack run.

"Merlin says don't attack Dragons who are fighting Sunshine Regiment", Harry yelled. "We could gain an advantage against our strongest enemies that way, but at this point both Chaos Legion and Dragon Army are in danger of depleted each other's forces and letting Sunshine Regiment actually win", he explained to those nearby.

The three Dragon began firing while still at a significant distance, knowing that the extra-large target couldn't dodge quickly. By the time they reached a more believable attack range, almost all of the Sunshine soldiers were glowing red, except for Ernie, who had been shielded. Then the Sunnies drew their wands and opened fire. Gregory dodged the massed fire and escaped, and Vincent narrowly managed to follow, but the third soldier was caught unprepared.

"So they're just blatantly going to cheat? That's not very Sunshine." Lavender commented.

* * *

T -6 days

Blaise grinned evilly, "Professor Quirrell said luminating the pilot or broom takes them out of the game. _Passengers_ aren't brooms or pilots, so they're immune to luminos. They have to be stunned or something else. And some of them could put shields around the pilot and broom. Imagine if Draco flew in, carefully aimed and shot someone, and then they shot him right back despite taking a direct hit. I'd love to see the look on Draco's face."

Ron replied, "_That's_ definitely not right. Malfoy's _mine_."

* * *

T 14 minutes

"They're not really flying brooms, are they?" Harry asked rhetorically. "Seamus, I want you to circle them at a safe range and call 'somnium' frequently. Don't actually cast it; you might hit Ernie or another pilot. You're just there as an obvious explanation when they start getting stunned. Lavender, fly up that way to a hundred meters above them, then put your shadow right behind them (so they'd have to look backward and stare at the sun to see you) and dive straight at them. Sleep-hex as many of them as you can, but don't take any shots that you think you might hit Ernie. Then luminate Ernie or the broom when you pass close to them."

Draco fired one last shot at Ron's back before turning around and returning to the main battle area. Seeing two of his soldiers chase Ron or Susan and not return had been quite enough so he called out for Vincent and Justin to let Susan go as well. He smiled as he watched Vincent quickly reverse course then chase down and eliminate Allen.

* * *

T 16 minutes

Harry was alone at the moment, Tracey and Dean having heroically 'sacrificed' themselves by flying directly into Gregory's flight path to stop him from shooting Harry. At point-blank range, it was impossible for Gregory to miss, but simple conservation laws (mass and momentum mostly) prevented them from disappearing out of his way after they'd been eliminated. They were thus able to physically impede his path for the few seconds Harry needed to get clear.

Unfortunately for Harry, Draco and Vincent weren't particularly busy, and immediately changed course to converge on him. Deprived of wingmen to assist him, Harry decided to play his last trick. He pulled up and accelerated to his top speed, climbing straight toward the sun, knowing his pursuers wouldn't be able to precisely target him.

He then turned over in the highest g turn where he could safely hold onto the broom. He cast contego in front of the broom to both deflect incoming fire and act as a windshield during his powered dive. He guessed he had only 100 or so milliseconds to register the shock on Draco's and Vincent's faces as he blew past them.

Harry impatiently waited thousands more milliseconds before pulling the cord on his transfigured parachute, which roughly jerked him backwards, allowing him to look up as he rapidly slowed down. He had deliberately made the material thin enough that he could look through it to see two silhouettes approaching, backlit by the bright daylight, while he remained hidden in the parachute's shadow.

He unclipped the harness and arbitrarily picked the one on the left, shooting Crabbe the instant he flew around the edge of the chute, then dodged around the chute himself, looking back and giggling as he saw Draco firing and also hitting Crabbe.

Harry's main apprehension before this battle had been facing Gregory Goyle, broom superman. He'd actually kind of been hoping for a chance to fight one-on-one with Draco. He gained altitude and waited for the parachute to drop into the trees, knowing Draco could currently see where he was and wanting a relatively fair fight. Then he saw saw Lavender caught between Gregory and Susan and quickly thought about where he was needed more.

At that moment, he heard Ron yell "Malfoy!" and raced off to try to reach Lavender. It looked like Justin would get there first.

Ron and Draco charge directly at each other, deviating only to dodge. neither willing to turn away and end up in the defensive position. Finally, Draco scored a direct hit, but was confused to see Ron smiling broadly. He looked down and saw he had been hit as well. Ron apparently noticed at the same time because they simultaneous yelled "Dammit" and "Bloody hell" as they made synchronized turns away from each other and flew toward opposite ends of the forest.

Gregory watched Draco fly off for only a second before making his decision. Several times now, soldiers he had personally been leading had been caught by Sunshine tricks, and he was starting to take it personally. He may have also been somewhat jealous that Lavender had had the chance to defeat half their army basically single-wandedly. But the opportunity to take on the whole rest of that army alone was just a happy coincidence. "Justin", he called, "go after her", as he fired a shot at Susan, who turned and retreated, yet again. After taking a moment to eliminate Lavender, he accelerated out and took a position 30 meters to Justin's right. When Susan dropped through the canopy, Gregory dropped to just over the ground, cut left, and slowly approached the Sunshine ground force, watching for red flashes.

Then he saw then, arranged in a half circle, concentrating fire on Justin, who was dodging and hopelessly trying to escape. Gregory adjusted course to approach them from behind. It may have all been in his head, but pretending to allow his annoyance to help power the spell seemed to allow him to cast somnium more frequently than he ever had before. Four Sunnies were asleep before they located him, including Hermione, Blaise, and Anthony. He easily dodged around a few trees while stunning the next four. He quickly counted in his head and determined that Susan was the last of them left. She had gotten off of her broom for some reason after they had shot Justin, and was now desperately rushing to get airborne again. Gregory let out a low growl and paused for a second, timing his final somnium for just before Susan's feet left the ground. As a result, she launched about six feet into the air before arcing back down and crumpling onto the ground.

Harry rushed toward Terry, who was close behind Seamus, but he was too far away. He watched Seamus invert and loop downward in a split-S. He could have gotten a few good shots at Terry halfway through the turn, but due to a combination of his current skill and the g-forces he was pulling, he couldn't lift his wand hand from the broom. Terry easily angled down and eliminated him seconds before Harry got within range.

After lighting up Terry Boot, Harry pulled up and scanned the area. Everyone else seemed to be off the field, or at least glowing and landing. Except... movement to his left. He dodged a pair of red bolts of light, "Crap. Goyle.", he thought. "I should've known he'd still be around. And of course I'm out of tricks."

Harry accelerated and dove into the trees, weaving around branches and blindly firing backwards. He couldn't turn around, but knew Gregory was still close, based on how narrowly the incoming shots were missing. Harry didn't dare slow down or turn enough to let him catch up further. Gregory had already seen the full range of combat maneuvers; Chaotic soldiers had put them to good use evading him as long as they had.

Harry cast wingardium leviosa on a small tree branch, recently fallen enough to still be covered in leaves, and brought it behind him as a shield, risking a quick glance backward. He saw Gregory 20m behind him, already landing two hits on the branch. Precious seconds ticked by as Harry ran through the list of spells he'd read about as quickly as he could, looking for something he could use. He was constrained to spells that were safe and was explicitly disallowed to cast anything other than luminos on Gregory or his broom.

He had one viable idea: cast ventus to blow leaves and dirt up and behind him. It wasn't great but it was the only feasible action he could think of. It wasn't technically casting magic on anyone, and was much less dangerous than what they were already doing. He carefully studied the rapidly approaching section of forest ahead of him, knowing he would only get a fraction of a second from this distraction.

He saw a tree with an especially wide trunk and approached it while continuing to weave. Four seconds out, he cast venus, blowing debris at Gregory. Two seconds out, he cast a sticking charm between his left hand and the broom, the spell he'd learned earlier that week to keep his glasses from falling off during high-g maneuvers. He reached the tree trunk, pulled into a climb, and barrel-rolled around the trunk, placing himself opposite Gregory, who he briefly saw dropping his wand hand from where he'd raised it to shield his eyes.

Harry shot into open sky and looking backwards, targeted the area next to the large tree where Gregory should be visible any millisecond. A shadow appeared at the treeline, Harry called "Luminosluminosluminosluminos...".

* * *

T 30 minutes

Harry awoke some time later. The first thing he noticed was that his left shoulder hurt. Opening his eyes, the second thing he noticed was that he was over ten meters above the canopy, hanging from his broom. The third thing he noticed was that his wand did not seem to be present.

Harry was confused; if everyone else was out, the battle should be over and someone should be helping him get down. If any enemies were left, he was an easy target and should have been taken out and someone should be helping him get down. He decided he could figure out what was going on and yell at people later; first he had to get control of the broom. He muttered, "note to self: learn wandless magic ASAP. Also, in the mean time, affix wand to some kind of bungee."

His first few attempts to reach up and grab the broom with his right hand failed, and if his left arm had ever had the strength to do a one-armed pull-up, it certainly didn't at the moment.

After thinking for a moment, Harry started to swing himself from side to side, eventually raising his right arm high enough to grab the broom. This caused the broom to shoot forward.

By shifting his weight carefully, Harry gained enough control over the broom to slow and lose altitude. His feet caught a tree trunk and he quasi-rappelled down. After his feet touched the ground, and he was able to get seated correctly on top of the broom. He flew slowly back toward the large tree, spotting his wand surprisingly quickly, although, now that he thought about it, straight, polished pieces of wood were very uncommon in this forest.

After recovering the wand, Harry cast _finite incantatem_ on his left hand, and finally released the broom. He winced as the pins-and-needles feeling reached his brain, and, exhausted, decided to lay on the ground and take a nap before returning to the castle.

Just as he closed his eyes, he heard cheering. Re-opening his eyes, he saw Chaos Legion on their brooms descending to the ground around him. Without moving he asked, "what took you guys so bloody long?"

Neville answered, "Professor Quirrell said an army couldn't win unless at least one soldier was conscious and holding a wand. We decided to wait for you to recover and see if you could get down on your own rather than accepting a tie."

"Oh. That sounds like Quirrell. You made the right choice... So I got Goyle, then? I never actually saw him get hit."

"You hit him a few times, actually. Including once in the face. He was pretty annoyed. Come on, let's get back to the castle", Tracy said, helping Harry back onto his feet.

* * *

"Harry", Professor Flitwick called. "Do you have a moment?"

Harry stopped, turned, and approached. "What is it, Professor?"

"The seeker for Ravenclaw's quidditch team is expected to be too ill to play in the next match, if not longer. After today, it looks like you're currently the best flier in Ravenclaw. Normally, first years aren't allowed on the house teams, but given the special circumstances involved, I think an exception can be made for a match or two. Are you interested?"

"Uh, why aren't first years normally allowed to play?"

"Well, mainly because they're usually not good enough to compete with older students, but the game is also potentially dangerous. There are occasional injuries."

"I'm sorry, professor, but I'm going to have to pass. I'm somewhat concerned by a game that's too dangerous to let 11 years olds play, but that wouldn't stop me if I thought it was important. Mostly, with everything else I have going on, I'm not sure I have the time to learn the game and prepare for matches. Also, from what I've learned about quidditch, it doesn't seem like a very well-designed game. I don't really see the attraction."

Flitwick chuckled. "Between you and me, I think that's the smart decision. I don't get quidditch either, but it's a tradition at Hogwarts, and as a Head of House, it's part of my job to recruit for it. It's not a coincidence that Ravenclaw doesn't win at quidditch very often."


End file.
